Tag: <span>2010</span>

One Local Summer – Week 14

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My little garden in the backyard has finally started producing something! After a REALLY disappointing zucchini season – read: Lack Thereof – the garden has made up for things by giving me a ton of cucumbers. I planted lemon cucumbers, regular old green cucumbers, and miniature white cucumbers.  I’ve foisted some off on the neighbors, and have been eating a lot of them fresh out of the garden, but there are still too many.  So, I found a wonderful recipe for cucumber soup.  I doubled the recipe, using three green cukes, two lemon cukes, and two of the over-ripe white cukes that turned bright yellow.  Used cilantro, oregano, basil, and sage from the deck herb planters, plain old water instead of broth, and left out the avocado.  My soup isn’t bright green like the picture in the recipe, but I let the onion get a good carmelization going which contributed to the brownish tinge to the soup.  It’s great both hot and cold, with or without the dollop of yogurt.

Cucumber Soup:
Cucumbers – My Garden
Herbs – My Garden
Goat’s Milk Yogurt – Shellbark Hollow Farm
Garlic – North Star Orchard
Non-local – pepper, olive oil, lime juice, salt, cayenne pepper

One Local Summer – Week 5

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Dear friend Abbie was over for a long weekend so I subjected her not only to the farmer’s market, but also to cooking a One Local Summer dinner with me. Reflecting back on the food coma we were in afterwards, I dare say that she didn’t mind the experience one bit.  Dinner consisted of a bison burger stuffed with mushrooms and blue cheese on some thick slices of wheat bread.  There’s a little bit of salad at the back too (yep, salad, again).  We probably made the burgers a bit too thick, but it didn’t seem to matter much since they both disappeared.

Burger:
Bison – Backyard Bison. Just your plain old ground bison.
Egg – Mountain View Organics. Just one, to help bind the burger together.
Blue Cheese – Birchrun Hills. Not only was it inside the burger, but we melted some on top too.
Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms. We decided on Shiitake for the burger, and put a few on top too.
Spinach – Charlestown Farm. Just for a little crispy crunch in between the burger and bread.
Garlic Scapes – Charlestown Farm.  Chopped these and sauteed them with the mushrooms.
Bread – Saint Peter’s Bakery. Wheat bread cut into thick slices
Zucchini Pickles – from my garden.  Canned these last year and they’re still incredible.
Non-Local – Salt, pepper, olive oil.

Salad:
Lettuce – Jack’s Farm. Looseleaf lettuce, delightful. We topped this with some more blue cheese
Non-Local – Salad Dressing

Wine:
Gewurztraminer – J Maki Winery.  I don’t know what he does to this grape to make such a unique Gewurztraminer, but boy is it ever delightful.